Russia pounds Ukraine as Prez Putin holds talks in Tehran

Kyiv: Russian cruise missiles struck villages around southern Ukraine's port city of Odesa early Tuesday, hitting houses, a school and a community centre as Russian President Vladimir Putin was in Iran to discuss a UN-backed proposal to unblock exports of Ukrainian grain.

Russian forces fired seven Kalibr cruise missiles at the Odesa region. The Russian Defence Ministry said strikes on the village of Bilenke had a legitimate military goal and "destroyed depots of ammunition for weapons supplied by the United States and European countries."

A local official disputed Moscow's claim and said six people were wounded.

"These strikes on peaceful people have one goal - to intimidate the population and the authorities and keep them in constant tension," Serhiy Bratchuk, the speaker of the Odesa regional government, told Ukrainian television.

The Russian military in recent weeks has targeted Odesa and parts of southern Ukraine where its troops captured cities earlier in the war amid indications that Ukraine was planning counterattacks to retake Russian-occupied areas.

Meanwhile, Ukrainian forces on the ground in eastern Ukraine are fighting to hold onto the declining territory under their control.

At least two civilians were killed and 15 more were wounded by Russian shelling across the country over the past 24 hours, Ukraine's presidential office said in a morning update.

"There remains a high level of threat of missile strikes throughout the territory of Ukraine," said Oleksandr Shtupun, spokesman of the General Staff of the Ukrainian armed forces.

In eastern Ukraine's Donetsk province, which has been cut off from gas supplies and in part from water and power, one person was killed and two

more wounded.